$100 fabric warranty all bark, no bite

As the owner of two occasionally slobber-prone greyhounds, Marie George didn’t deliberate long when the salesman asked if she wanted a fabric protection warranty for the sectional sofa she bought in August 2005.
She read the fine print and saw that the seven-year warranty specifically covered stains from, among other things, pet saliva. She paid $100 for the Stainsafe warranty on her “Siena buff” colored couch from Hack’s Furniture and filed the paperwork away at her Albany home.

George remembered the warranty this year in mid-October when she spotted her two rescued racers, Mazzie and Crash, nosing aside the blanket she keeps on the sofa to protect the microfiber upholstery against soil, stains and shedding fur. Sure enough, her hounds had left a stain.
She pulled the warranty on the $899 sofa from her file and called the toll-free phone number, expecting to learn the next step in using the warranty, but got no answer on her call. Hack’s Furniture, now closed, was associated with Albany-based Mooradian’s , so she called there next.
“I thought the first thing they did was try to clean it, and if they couldn’t, they would replace the furniture — not that I expected that to happen. I would have just been happy to have the stain gone,” she said.
No such luck.
George’s warranty wasn’t with Hack’s or Mooradian’s. It was with a Florida company called Stainsafe, a third-party warranty provider that company President Bill Mooradian says his store stopped offering shortly after George bought her sofa in 2005.
Stainsafe, which most recently has operated under the name Global Care Solutions, has accumulated a hefty load of consumer complaints, earning it an “F” rating from the Better Business Bureau. Now, it’s also embroiled in a messy battle in Florida bankruptcy court.
An involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition seeking liquidation of Global Care’s assets was filed in August by two former salesmen for the company and a former supplier. Global Care is fighting the bankruptcy petition, accusing the three petitioners of forming a competing company and aiming to knock Global Care out of the market.
None of that bodes well for George’s chances for getting her couch cushion cleaned or replaced under the warranty.
George couldn’t reach anyone when she called the toll-free number printed on her warranty, and I couldn’t even get a ring on the other end when I dialed the number this week.
Theoretically, George could get in line with other consumers and hope for some satisfaction as the case slogs through U.S. Bankruptcy Court, but the chances of success before it’s long past time to replace the sofa anyhow are between slim and none.
Her experience offers one more illustration of why extended warranties — particularly those provided by companies other than the retailer ­— are seldom worth buying. Even if Stainsafe hadn’t gone bankrupt, Mooradian said, the detailed conditions attached to such warranties can make it hard to collect on them.
Mooradian said he offers the warranties ­— now from a company called Guardsman — because some customers want and expect them. His sales staff does make commissions on warranty sales, he acknowledged, but he’s not a big advocate for them, especially when it comes to stain coverage.
To be covered, a stain usually needs to stem from a specific accident and the claim must be submitted immediately. That means soil buildup from normal wear, stains of unknown origin or stains that happened last month probably won’t be covered.
“If a dog throws up on it, it’s covered. If a dog pees on it regularly, it’s not,” Mooradian said. “With a dog, it’s challenging because you get a single incident warranty, and usually, by the time people report it, it’s happened more than once. With a repeat offender, it’s not covered.”
This can be true with almost any third-party furniture warranty, Mooradian said, but issues surrounding Stainsafe claims were one reason he opted to switch to another company.
“Their sense of fair and our sense of fair weren’t in line,” he said.
I think the case for George’s claim looks pretty good, but it’s not a slam-dunk. Her sofa appears to be in excellent condition, aside from the spot where the dogs nosed aside the blanket in early October. Still, it would be hard for her to produce conclusive evidence that the stain resulted from a single incident and not an ongoing problem.
It’s unusual for a claim to be submitted so long after a piece of furniture was sold, Mooradian said. By the time a couple of years have passed, the item tends to have accumulated wear and soil not covered by the warranty, and by that time, consumers may even be looking ahead to redecorating and replacing the piece.
In this case, since George probably is out of luck with Stainsafe, and since it sounds possible — though not certain ­— that her claim would fit the restrictions outlined in the warranty, Mooradian said he would consider helping out with the cost of cleaning.
“There’s no one to say it’s a legitimate claim or not a legitimate claim,” he said. “See if she wants to have the sofa cleaned at a 50/50 expense with us. I think we would go along with that.”
I spoke with George and, while she was hoping to be able to see the full value of her warranty, she said she’d appreciate the store sharing the cleaning cost and will give Mooradian a call.